Court Life in China, Isaac Taylor Headland [an ebook reader .txt] 📗

“No doubt,” he replied. “Everybody knows it, why not he?”

“That will make his imprisonment all the harder to bear,” we suggested.

“Quite right,” he answered.

“There is general alarm in the city that the Emperor himself will be disposed of; what do you think about it?”

“Who can tell? He has not a friend in the palace except the first concubine, and, I am told, that she like himself is kept in close confinement. The Empress stands by her aunt, the Empress Dowager, while the eunuchs now are all her tools. The officials who go into the palace to audiences are all conservative and hence against him, though I suppose they never see him.”

“Do you suppose he ever sees the edicts issued in his name?”

“Not at all. They are made by the conservatives and the Empress Dowager and issued without his knowledge.”

“And what do you propose to do?” we inquired.

“I shall leave for Shanghai as soon as I can safely do so,” he replied.

Before the year had passed the Empress Dowager had been induced or compelled to select a new Emperor. We cannot believe that she did it of her own free will, and for several reasons. First, the child selected was the son and the grandson of ultra conservative princes, and we cannot but believe that as she had placed herself in the hands of the conservative party, it was their selection rather than hers. Second, it must have been a humiliation to her ever since she discovered that her nephew, whom she had selected and placed upon the throne in order to keep the succession in her own family, being the same generation as her son who had died, could not worship him as his ancestor, and hence could not legally occupy the throne, though as a matter of fact such a condition is not unknown in Chinese history.

But if her humiliation was great, that of our boy-prisoner was still greater, for he was compelled to witness an edict, proclaimed in his own name, which made him say that as there was no hope of his having a child of his own to succeed him, he had requested the Empress Dowager to select a suitable person who should be proclaimed as the successor of Tung Chih, his predecessor, thus turning himself out of the imperial line. That this could not have been her choice is evidenced, further, by the fact that just as soon as she had once more regained her power, she surrounded herself with progressive officials, turned out all the great conservatives except Jung Lu, and dispossessing the son of Prince Tuan, at the time of her death selected her sister’s grandchild and proclaimed him successor to her son and heir to the Emperor Kuang Hsu, in the following edict:

“Inasmuch as the Emperor Tung Chih had no issue, on the fifth day of the twelfth moon of that reign (January 12, 1875) an edict was promulgated to the effect that if the late Emperor Kuang Hsu should have a son, the said Prince should carry on the succession as the heir of Tung Chih. But now the late Emperor has ascended upon the dragon to be a guest on high, leaving no son, and there is no course open but to appoint Pu I, the son of Tsai Feng, the Prince Regent, as the successor to Tung Chih, and also as heir to the Emperor Kuang Hsu,” which is quite in keeping with the conduct and character of the Empress Dowager all her life except those two bad years.

During the days and weeks following the dispossession of Kuang Hsu of the throne, in 1899 many decrees appeared which signified that at no distant date he would be superseded by the son of Prince Tuan. The foreign ministers began again to look grave. They spoke openly of their fear that Kuang Hsu’s days were numbered. They pressed their desire for the usual New Year’s audience, and once more the imprisoned monarch was brought forth and made to sit upon the throne and receive them. But when the ladies asked for an audience they were refused, the Empress Dowager being too busy with affairs of state. She was at that time seriously considering whether or not the government should cast in its lot with the Boxers and drive all the foreigners with all their productions into the eastern sea.

One of the princesses told Mrs. Headland that before coming to a decision the Empress Dowager called the hereditary and imperial princes into the palace to consult with them as to what they would better do. She met them all face to face, the Emperor and Prince Tuan standing near the throne. She explained to them the ravages of the foreigners, how they were gradually taking one piece after another of Chinese territory.

“And now,” she continued, “we have these patriotic braves who claim to be impervious to swords and bullets; what shall we do? Shall we cast in our lot with their millions and drive all these foreigners out of China or not?”

Prince Tuan, as father of the heir-apparent, uneducated, superstitious and ignorant of all foreign affairs, then spoke. He said:

“I have seen the Boxers drilling, I have heard their incantations, and I believe that they will be able to effect this much desired end. They will either kill the foreigners or drive them out of the country and no more will dare to come, and thus we will be rid of them.”

The hereditary princes were then asked for an expression of opinion. The majority of them knew little of foreigners and foreign countries, and as Prince Tuan, the father of the future Emperor, had expressed himself so strongly, they hesitated to offer an adverse opinion. But when it came to Prince Su, a man of strong character, widely versed in foreign affairs, and of independent thought, he opposed the measure most vigorously.

“Who,” he asked, “are these Boxers? Who are their leaders? How can they, a mere rabble, hope to vanquish the armies of foreign nations?’

Prince Tuan answered that “by their incantations they were able to produce heaven-sent soldiers.”

Prince Su denounced such superstition as childish. But when after further argument between him and Prince Tuan the Empress Dowager assured him that she had had them in the palace and had witnessed their prowess, he said no more.

The imperial princes were then consulted, but seeing how Prince Su had fared they were either in favour of the measure or non-committal. Finally the Empress Dowager appealed to Prince Ching who, more diplomatic than the younger princes, answered:

“I consider it a most dangerous undertaking, and I would advise against it. But if Your Majesty decides to cast in your lot with the Boxers I will do all in my power to further your wishes.”

It is not a matter of wonder therefore that the Empress Dowager should be led into such a foolish measure as the Boxer movement, when the Prince who had been president of the Foreign Office for twenty-five years could so weakly acquiesce in such an undertaking.

“The Emperor,” said the Princess, “was not asked for an expression of his opinion on this occasion, but when he saw that the Boxer leaders had won the day he burst into tears and left the room.”

Similar meetings were held in the palace on two other occasions, when the Emperor implored that they make no attempt to fight all the foreign nations, for said he, “the foreigners are stronger than we, both in money and in arms, while their soldiers are much better drilled and equipped in every way. If we undertake this and fail as we are sure to do, it will be impossible to make peace with the foreigners and our country will be divided up amongst them.” His pleadings, however, were disregarded, and after the meeting was over, he had to return to his little island, where for eight weeks he was compelled to sit listening to the rattling guns, booming cannons and bursting firecrackers, for the Boxers seemed to hope to exterminate the foreigners by noise. He must have felt from the books he had studied that it could only result in disaster to his own people.

When the allies reached Peking and the Boxers capitulated the Emperor was taken out of his prison and compelled to flee with the court.

“What do you think of your bullet-proof Boxers now?” one can imagine they hear him saying to his august aunt, as he sees her cutting off her long finger nails, dressing herself in blue cotton garments, and climbing into a common street cart as an ordinary servant. “Wouldn’t it have been better to have taken my advice and that of Hsu Ching-cheng and Yuan Chang instead of having put them to death for endeavouring in their earnestness to save the country? What about your old conservative friends? Can they be depended upon as pillars of state?” Or some other “I-told-you-so” language of this kind.

From their exile in Hsian decrees continued to be issued in his name, and when affairs began to be adjusted, and the allies insisted on setting aside forever the pretentions of the anti-foreign Prince Tuan and his son, banishing the former to perpetual exile, our hopes ran high that the Emperor would be restored to his throne. But to our disappointment the framers of the Protocol contented themselves with the clause that: “Rational intercourse shall be permitted with the Emperor as in Western countries,” and with the return of the court in 1902 he was still a prisoner.

Every one who has written about audiences with the Empress Dowager tells how “the Emperor was seated near, though a little below her,” but they never tell why. The reason is not far to seek. The world must not know that he was a prisoner in the palace. They must see him near the throne, but they may not speak to him. The addresses of the ministers were passed to her by her kneeling statesmen, and it was they who replied. No notice was taken of the Emperor though he seemed to be in excellent health. The Empress Dowager however still relieved him of the burdens of the government, and continued to “teach him how to govern.”

“I have seen the Emperor many times,” Mrs. Headland tells me, “and have spent many hours in his presence, and every time we were in the palace the Emperor accompanied the Empress Dowager—not by her side but a few steps behind her. When she sat, he always remained standing a few paces in the rear, and never presumed to sit unless asked by her to do so. He was a lonely person, with his delicate, well-bred features and his simple dark robes, and in the midst of these fawning eunuchs, brilliant court ladies, and bejewelled Empress Dowager he was an inconspicuous figure. No minister of state touched forehead to floor as he spoke in hushed and trembling voice to him, no obsequious eunuchs knelt when coming into his presence; but on the contrary I have again and again seen him crowded against the wall by these cringing servants of Her Majesty.

“One day while we were in the palace a pompous eunuch had stepped before the Emperor quite obliterating him. I saw Kuang Hsu put his hands on the large man’s shoulders, and quietly turn him around, that he might see before whom he stood. There were no signs of anger on his face, but rather a gentle, pathetic smile as he looked up at the big servant. I expected to see him fall upon his knees before the Emperor, but instead, he only moved a few inches to the left, and remained still in front of His Majesty. Never when in the palace have I seen a knee bend to the Emperor, except that of the